Broken
by FalconDot
Summary: The Malfoy heir is broken, and has been for far too long. Until he leaves his family, leaves behind all he has, and becomes a professor at Hogwarts. The Boy-Who-Lived is trying to find peace, and finally does when he becomes a teacher and meets the other side of Malfoy. Drarry mild slash warning. Rated T for violence. Also available on ao3. Complete.
1. Broken

**A/N: WARNING: This contains subtle hints of slash. If you don't like it, click the back button. There's no reason I should be subjected to your complaints if you brought it on yourself. The T rating is for violence and darkness, not slash.**

 **Besides that, hello! It seems to be a while since I've been on this site.**

 **If you follow my main story, When Lines Divide Us, please know I have NOT abandoned it and have no intentions of doing so. Same goes for New Monsters. I am simply at a time when I cannot bring myself to write another chapter and hope that it passes soon so I can continue with both stories and eventually finish them.**

 **This is part one of a two-shot. The second part will be up soon.**

 **It kinda just popped into my head and here it is now. Enjoy, and, once again, if you don't like slash, please go read something else. Thoughts are welcome!**

 _Disclaimer: I, quite unfortunately, do not own Harry Potter. Some genius invented it before me._

* * *

 **Broken**

He has been broken for a long time — six years, as a matter of fact. And then she decides that six years is far too long to be broken. Especially when they broke him when he was _just a boy. Just a_ _ **boy.**_ Just sixteen. Just sixteen when they branded him with that terrible tattoo and forced him into a task no other boy should ever face.

Far too long, she thinks, when she suspects he'd been shattered for a while before he even turned sixteen.

His father and his friends forced the coldness into her son long before that.

After the war, his father went to prison for three years. Even though the Boy-Who-Lived stood up for him when he had no obligation, no reason to. The sentence in Azkaban had been shortened from a lifespan to three years because the elderly wizards could not object to the clear and painful fire in those green, bespectacled eyes.

His mother was on house arrest for a year. She'd lied straight in the Dark Lord's face to protect her own son, and despite her selfish reasons, was seen as a hero.

Now, the three of them are reunited, living in a house that holds nothing but bad memories. Father, mother, son. He hates it. All that is here for him are the memories. Of a witch, the brightest of her age, being tortured by his craze-driven aunt _right there on that carpet._ Of the boy with the striking green eyes that held too much burden and knowledge and wisdom for his age being shoved, his face swollen from the curse and his wand taken from him, in that dungeon _right down there_ to listen helplessly as his friend's arm was cut into with that cursed blade, spilling her blood on that carpet _right there_.

Of the screams she let out as that blood seeped into the floor, looking much brighter and clearer than he'd been taught to believe it would be. Not dirty at all, her blood, but cleaner than his. Of the redhead's tortured screams in the dungeon _right down there_ as he listened to her agony helplessly and yelled in a way that he'd've thought the redhead himself was being tortured instead.

Of how, later, he'd cheered and wept for them in secret, in his head, because they were strong enough to escape when he wasn't, _couldn't, couldn't_ because he was a goddamn coward and we _wasn't_ strong enough and _he_ would kill his family if he left.

Of how he'd cheered despite himself, left wandless, because he didn't care anymore how much of a disgrace he was to his family, his House, his Lord, when he saw the power that burned through those emerald eyes as they'd escaped, and it had a name — hope.

* * *

His mother and father do not complain when he leaves them to their house stained with memories, smelling of the violence that has been long since wiped away by magic.

They still, of course, insist he try to find a respectable life. A respectable spouse, wife. Of blood like his. They don't want their name to be ruined by their only son, as it's the only thing they have left. But a while later, sick and scarred from their pure-blooded bigotry, he stops trying. Stops speaking to them entirely.

And that's when Narcissa Malfoy decides that six years, more likely twenty-one, is far, _far_ too long to be broken and scarred from the inside out.

* * *

She hears things while he's gone. Hears that he's left the potions apothecary he started himself to become a teacher when he's barely on the brink of turning twenty-five. Well, good. Maybe he can make an impact on someone else. A positive one at that.

She hears that the wizarding world is not yet ready to forgive him for his actions, actions he'd been forced into in his teenage years, when he was far too young to understand. She understands. The world may _never_ be ready to forgive him, and it will be a blessing if it ever decides to. Her family name is disgraced as it is. Hopefully he can build himself a new, better reputation. Hopefully, he has more luck than his family before him.

Luck certainly seems to be in his favor a couple years later, when she hears he's one of the best Potions teachers Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft has ever seen, not that there was much competition in years past. Hears that he has established tentative but healthy relations with the rest of the staff, including the similarly young but experienced new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and Herbology professor.

And she hopes that somehow, someone has managed to fix him. Fix her broken son.

So when, six years later, he shows up at the doorstep of his old home again, grey eyes shining brighter than she's ever seen them, she does not frown or complain about whose hand is locked within his own.

If there is someone who can fix her broken son, she doesn't care who it is.

If is has to be a messy-haired man with those same green bespectacled eyes and a scar that shows just how broken he is as well, if it is him that puts the sparkle and light back in her son's eye, and if it is him that will care for him and fix him no matter how dark a mark has been pushed into his arm, then she won't care at all.


	2. Things Are Getting Better Now

**A/N: Hello again!**

 **Part two has arrived. I'm actually considering writing a full-length fic centered around something like this story. Tell me your thoughts, all you've got to do is click the review button!**

 **Teddy Lupin will be seen quite a lot in this part, don't you worry. It actually ended up being a lot longer than I expected, but oh well, the more the merrier.**

 **There will NOT be a part three. I repeat, there won't be a part three. This is the end of the road.**

 **WARNING: Once again, slash.**

 _Disclaimer: For the last time, I do not own Harry Potter!_

* * *

 **Things Are Getting Better Now**

Once, he would have thought that the relationships he held after the war would last. That was before he searched his heart for the actual truth.

Some relationships, the stronger ones - they last for a long time, and they're still with him today. Some relationships, the newer ones - they last for a very short amount of time after the Boy-Who-Lived figures out exactly who he is and quite how fragile his heart can be at times.

He leaves those who had taken him in when he was twelve and provided him a home and love and support. Not because he didn't appreciate all they'd done for him - no. He simply needs to find a new place in his life, and it isn't at the Burrow surrounded by dozens of people, no matter how welcoming they are.

He leaves his bright-haired godson in the care of his grandmother Andromeda, because he knows he cannot take care of an almost-one-year-old if he cannot take care of himself. He promises he'll come back when he's found stability, when he's found peace.

It seems odd indeed to the general public when the news that Harry Potter has stood in favor of the now-no-longer-prestigious, now-disgraced Malfoy family when they face the Wizengamot court comes out in the _Daily Prophet_. It seems strange that he has managed to shorten Lucius Malfoy's sentence to Azkaban to only three years. It seems strange that Narcissa Malfoy saved his life and countless others when she lied directly to the Dark Lord, and thus will not go to Azkaban. It shocks the general public that Harry Potter stands the strongest for the heir of the Malfoy family, who because of the Boy-Who-Lived, will never go to Azkaban because he never will deserve it. All that is sentenced to Draco Malfoy is a duty to finish his education at Hogwarts.

It is quite strange indeed to the general public when the news that Harry Potter has quit the Auror program comes out in the _Daily Prophet_. For many days, several weeks actually, the reporters follow him around, have interns tail him around, until finally, _finally_ , he decides it's too much and not enough.

It is even stranger, indeed, to the general public when the news that Harry Potter's whereabouts are unknown comes out in the _Daily Prophet_. No more reporters try and stop him to ask questions. No more interns tail him everywhere he goes.

He thinks he might have found some peace and quiet, at last, away from the war that plagued his heart and mind and even his _soul_ for the longest time.

Maybe things are getting better now.

After a couple months, he's eighteen. He tells his friends his whereabouts.

Hermione is the first to visit. He sits and listens (for that is what he is good at) when she tells him that she was too strong, that her parents will never return from Australia and will never remember the daughter they have. She cries and he comforts her. He sits and listens when she tells him that she and Ron are only friends, that really, that was all they were ever meant to be. He listens when she tells him that she's going to finish her education at Hogwarts - going to be one of the few eighth years there. He laughs, because, of course, it's Hermione, and she is just the same.

He doesn't really tell her anything of his own; after all, not much news comes by a person when they've been away from society in a forest for two years. The only thing he tells her is that he's planning to go back. Now, that he's at peace, he's thinking much more clearly than he has in several, several years - he's realized how little he thought of himself during the war, and how much time he's had to reflect on himself during this time away.

But he won't go back. Not just yet.

Ron comes by with Ginny. Ron gives him a large hug and is glad to hear he's coming back. Ginny looks at him rather sadly, still hurt that he left her, but she still hugs him and lies, saying there are no hard feelings.

After two more years, he's twenty. His friends visit often, but not often enough that he feels the need to shoo them away.

Ginny looks at him, but this time, unlike the last, she's smiling. Now, she thinks, she knows why had to leave. All the recent attention she's gotten for getting drafted into the Holyhead Harpies straight out of Hogwarts can drown a person quite easily.

Teddy Lupin comes along to visit with his grandmother, and the almost three-year-old jumps with joy because he realizes he's got more _family_. He's got bubblegum hair, the color it's been since Andromeda showed him a picture of his mum.

After another year, he's twenty-one. He gets a new visitor, one he'd never expected before, with blonde hair that for once isn't slicked back with gel but hangs forward, naturally, the way it's supposed to be. Draco Malfoy only visits once, and it's brief, and it's to thank him for the service he's done for his family. And to tell him he's opening an apothecary in Diagon Alley, because he's grown quite fond of potions. He never visits again.

Another year. He's twenty-two.

Things are getting even better still, now, when McGonagall comes by at last, and offers him a position as a teacher.

He thinks of saying no. But quite honestly, why would he? He has no intention of following Quidditch professionally. He has already left the Auror department. In retrospect, he thinks, becoming a professor would not be a bad idea.

Not at all.

* * *

 _September first_

Two years later, he's twenty-four, and he's finished his training to become a teacher.

Things are getting better now. That's what runs through his mind as he sits, for the first time, at the staff table in the Great Hall, listening (for that's what he's good at) to McGonagall's words to the next generation of Hogwarts.

All of the students here are new faces to him. None of them, however, will be strangers to his face - his scar, his glasses - once they've learned about the most recent war against the Dark Lord Voldemort in their History of Magic class.

History of Magic is still taught by a ghost. Transfiguration is not taught by Minerva McGonagall, who is now Headmistress, and to some, it is a welcome change. To others, it is not.

Potions is taught by the same Horace Slughorn, whose faults have finally been accepted by the Boy-Who-Lived. No one can be perfect.

He makes a promise to visit Hagrid every Friday, for Hagrid is still there, even if Fang is not.

The staff at Hogwarts has changed, but the school itself has not. He knows it in his heart, when he sees the ghosts floating around and talking to students, the staircases moving, the Quidditch pitch standing newly remade, Hagrid walking around outside, the doors acting of their own accord, Peeves zooming around, wands in the hands of young wizards and witches who, just like those before, are ready to learn.

The only thing that's different are the people within, and the cooperation between houses. No one ever sits all year long at the table designated to their house; and that perhaps is because the tables are not specifically designated to different houses.

Good, he thinks. Unison makes us stronger.

* * *

It is quite shocking indeed to the general public when the _Daily Prophet_ gives out the news that Harry Potter has resurfaced and is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, for it was quite a common assumption that he would return to the Auror office or the Ministry of Magic.

He has no intention of doing so, however, because things are getting better right where he is.

When the time comes that the third years are learning about the Second Wizarding War, he has no lesson plan for the day. Instead of teaching, he sits and answers their questions, tiredly, yes, but quite happily, about those days in the past that sometimes still haunt him in his dreams.

It isn't with a stern hand that he tells his class that they will resume learning about Tickling curses tomorrow.

Over the winter holidays, he visits the Burrow again. He visits Ron, who tells him he's having a good time learning to be an Auror even if it is tiring, and Hermione, who is traveling now to get to know different magical cultures around the world, and George, who has dyed his hair yet another color but is running the Weasley Wizard Wheezes because it's what he's got left. He visits Bill and Fleur, who are busy with three children of their own.

He visits Teddy Lupin, who is now seven and has turquoise hair, and then he makes a trip to visit Neville and Luna, and when Neville tells him he'll be starting as Herbology professor next year, and Luna tells him she's restarting up the Quibbler since her father passed last year, he supposes that things really are healing over since the war.

* * *

When he leaves Hogwarts for the summer, he knows he's made an impact, and he's glad the children he teaches will know and remember him as more than just the Boy-Who-Lived, but now a teacher who will help them through life.

Many of his students will continue to come by every afternoon or morning of a certain weekday next year. He will continue to watch the sunrise each and every morning from the top of the Astronomy tower next year. He will continue to teach students how to properly defend themselves against enemies next year. He will continue hoping that none of them ever have to use the skills he teaches them in real life, though that maybe is a bit too much to hope for.

* * *

Things get even better still when Andromeda decides to move into a house near Hogwarts so Harry can visit little Teddy every day.

* * *

He returns to Hogwarts the next year, looking forward to it as a teacher just as much as he did when he was a student. This year, Pomona Sprout and Horace Slughorn are no longer at Hogwarts. They are replaced by two people just as young as he is.

He spends Saturdays and Sundays with Neville, talking and drawing up lesson plans and sometimes remembering the war. Neville is quite happy with Luna, and the two invite him to their wedding next April. In mid-November, they are joined by a blonde head that is all too familiar, but they welcome Draco in anyway.

Now, he is joined on the top of the Astronomy tower every morning by Draco, who is also a morning person. They watch the sunrise over Hogwarts.

Draco tells him a bit more every morning, and he listens (for that is what he's good at). He listens to how his parents still want him to marry a pureblood wife, and so he tried and got very close to marrying Astoria Greengrass. But it didn't work, because he didn't love her.

After a while, he starts to wonder who Draco will love. He can see how broken the blonde is, inside, even though he might not show it on the outside.

But every day Draco talks, and he listens, and sometimes Harry talks, and Draco listens, and that's just how it works. And slowly, they start to fix each other's broken selves.

* * *

Harry invites Draco to meet Teddy over the holidays. He is, after all, his second cousin once-removed. Draco spends every passing moment with him, and he watches as Draco's tender side shows through. He watches as the tips of Teddy's bright blue hair turn blonde.

They visit the Burrow that holiday, surrounded by snow and covered in it too. Mrs. Weasley knits a green sweater that has the letter D on it and gives it to Draco. It isn't easy, especially for Ginny and Ron, but Draco is slowly adopted into a second family just like Harry was adopted into his first.

He's never been happier, but of course, things are getting better now. He doesn't know what to make of his feelings towards the blonde, the ones that make him all warm and fuzzy inside. He's only felt like this once before, and it was that time when Ginny rushed towards him after that Quidditch game…

* * *

 _Two years later_

He's twenty-seven.

Never has an article from the _Daily Prophet_ caused so much inquiet in the Wizarding World, or so he thinks as he reads it quietly in his office with Neville and Draco, a smile on his face, his arm wrapped around the the latter's waist. His fourth year as a teacher at Hogwarts is about to start, but this time with a bang.

At least he can be grateful inside that Rita Skeeter didn't write it, he thinks as he presses a kiss to the other's forehead. Draco's arm tightens around his shoulders. Neville smiles at them, thinking fondly of his Luna and their daughter at home.

* * *

The school is wide awake at the start-of-term feast, and they're all looking back and forth between their Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions professors. Is it true?

The murmurs are still going throughout the Great Hall when McGonagall sends them all off to bed. He looks at Draco. They smile. Yes, there will be questions, and there will be hate, but if they've got each other, they can get through it.

The students, first years to seventh, (who are supposed to be going to their dormitories) all watch as their Potions teacher walks over to the other side of the staff table and plants his lips briefly on Professor Potter's. Watch in awe as both smile and stand up and walk out. For once, it seems a gossipy article from the _Daily Prophet_ has been true.

Minerva McGonagall watches as Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, and Draco Malfoy disappear, hand-in-hand into Harry's office, knowing they'll Floo back to a certain boy whose hair, usually turquoise, has been a brilliantly pale blonde for a while now, and she smiles.

Yes, perhaps things really are getting better now after all.


End file.
